Can inexpensive compact cooling solutions be of any use for an overclocking fan? How noisy and efficient are they? Our today’s review will introduce to you three compact solutions like that and check them out on a quad-core Intel Core 2 Extreme QX9650 processor.

Installation Tips

The cooler can be installed onto any of the supported platforms without any special tools. All you need to do is insert the proper retention into the heatsink above the cooler base and then place Scythe Shuriken onto the CPU:

Socket 478

Socket 754/939/940/AM2

LGA 775

I don’t know about Socket 478 or Socket 754/939/940/AM2, but pushing the plastic retention spindles into the holes around the LGA 775 socket is a real pain. The thing is that the bottom of the cooler heatsink is very close to the spindle tops and it is rally hard to reach there. And together with the closely located heatsinks on the chipset and on the power elements of the voltage regulator circuitry it makes the installation really hard to accomplish. Removing the cooler from the mainboard is not any easier.

Nevertheless, if you managed to install this cooler, then it will look like this inside your system case:

I personally was very surprised that Scythe Shuriken MSRP is set at $32.80. It is extremely expensive for a cooler of that size.